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Monday, 19 January 2015

**Blog Tour & Review** Flawed and Damaged by Emily Krat

Book Title: Flawed and Damaged

Author: Emily Krat

Genre: New Adult/Contemporary Romance

Release Date: 22 July, 2014

Two people haunted by their past…

The collision of two damaged hearts…

Meet Elizabeth Williams. She is at the airport on an important work assignment. If everything goes smoothly, after three years of hard work, she’ll get a promotion and a much-needed raise. Elizabeth is putting her life back on track after it was ripped out from under her feet four years ago when she lost her parents along with all her dreams. Standing here, she believes her life is going to change for the better any moment now. Nothing can go wrong, right?

Meet Ryan Price. He came to Moscow on business. Right now, Ryan is standing at the airport looking at a ‘present’ from his brother, judging by the sign a beautiful young woman is holding. Damn his brother for not cancelling this arrangement as Ryan asked.

Miscommunications and misunderstandings and a love story begins.

There will be a scary flight, lovely breakfasts, long evening conversations, sharing a secret or two, discovering one another, a lot of laughter, tender moments and some tears, a fight and, of course, the I-am-ready-for-the-end-of-the-world kiss.

Somewhere along the way, they won’t be able to fight their feelings any longer.

For the first time in his life, Ryan will experience a different shade of lust. And for the first time in her life, Elizabeth will have to trust despite all of the times she has been hurt.

Will these two wounded lost souls find love, peace and comfort in each other or will they just break each other more? Is it a train wreck of a love story or a happily ever after?

“Ryan, I love you.” He looks confused, but relief is evident in his eyes, so I continue. “It was wrong of me to tell you about my feelings like I did yesterday. I was being a coward. I’m glad you shared all this with me. I won’t run, Ryan.”

“But, I don’t understand. How can you love me? Even after I told you about what I’ve done … How can you love someone so … horrible?” he says bitterly.

“You are not horrible, Ryan. I know it. I feel it.”

“How?” The desperation in his voice squeezes my chest.

I stare into the deep green pools that are his eyes and wonder how I can show him what I see.

“In here,” I point to my heart, “I believe my heart. And from what you told me, I can tell that you had no family except Mark. You were a kid at thirteen who didn’t want to lose his brother, you were a young man who sacrificed his own freedom for someone he loved the most. Now you are a big business mogul who may be harsh toward his employees, but puts them first even when seeking revenge. It’s an honor for me to love someone as devoted as you.”

“Liz, I’ve lied – ” I interrupt him.

“We are people, Ryan. We all make mistakes. You think I’m so pure? I wanted to use David to stay in Seattle. I agreed to marry someone for my own selfish reasons. Then I came to Russia and spent more than six months making my Granny’s life a living hell. She lost her only daughter. I never once thought about her feelings. She was old, she needed my care, and all I did was sulk for my old life. Even with you, how do you know I’m not using you? Maybe I just like this sense of fulfillment I feel with you that overwhelms the loneliness I've felt for so long. I am not a saint, Ryan. I also did awful things.”

I sigh. Now I don’t like the direction this conversation is taking. “You already told me that you didn’t need an assistant. There’s more?”

“I read your journal.”

The blood drains from my face.

“You what?” My voice trembles.

“When we were in Nice – the night you got drunk with Mark – I saw your notebook and I read it.”

“I … I …” No words come out of my mouth because I don’t have any. I can’t believe he did it. I wrote my sacred thoughts there, poured some raw feelings on those pages. They were never meant for anyone’s eyes other than mine.

“I’m sorry I did it. I was at a loss, I couldn’t understand what I was feeling for you.”

“So you read my journal to understand yourself? Ryan, it’s private. I poured my soul there. How could you do this?” I may be screaming now, but I don’t care. Some boundaries can’t be crossed.

“That’s who I am, Elizabeth. I don’t care about people’s privacy.”

“I’m so mad at you right now. I don’t even know what to say. Is that all?”

“No.”

Oh God!

“Tell me.” He almost looks scared. That’s when I know there are so many more lies he doesn’t want to tell me about. “Now, Ryan. You are going to tell me every damn thing. You owe me this.”

Always an avid reader who consumes whole books in a single day, Emily Krat is ecstatic to now be on the other side of the page. For her writing stories and developing ideas for novels is a true passion and a dream come true. Emily is a chocolate junkie, “Grey’s Anatomy” fan, and admirer of good music. She loves summer rains, warm blankets on cold winter nights, as well as traveling, sleeping in late, watching TV shows, cooking, and baking. When she’s not writing or rewriting, she loves spending time with family and friends.

The author had me hooked very early in the story with the fiasco that Elizabeth found herself in at the airport and the way Ryan misunderstood the situation. This book was one of the rare occasions that I found simple everyday situations and mistakes were enough to create important scenes in the story. The need to over dramatize events was not needed here, the characters were rich enough in their attitudes and personality to make me connect immediately and slap my hand on my forehead and think that is something I would have done myself.

The story is told in a dual POV and there were times that we covered what had just happened briefly with each character and for me that took away from the smooth reading flow BUT that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t highly recommend this book to everyone because the plot is outstanding and left me wanting more immediately.

Elizabeth is going to approach a new life in Moscow the minute Ryan walked into her world. Losing her parents a few years ago, being disregarded by her aunt, her only family left was her grandma in Moscow. Packing her belongings and leaving Seattle, she embarks on a life that would allow her to forget the past and move on from the mistakes and secrets she holds close. Working at a job that she doesn’t love but would love to promote to a new position she makes a fatal error on her first assignment and finds that now she is jobless and being pursued by a rich, sexy and demanding American man.

Ryan had anything but a happy home and the business he runs today once belonged to his father, the same business that made his father ruthless, absent and certainly an enemy to Ryan. With nothing on his mind other than revenge, he goes to Moscow for business and is caught up in what he thought was a trick by his brother. He couldn’t wrap his head around this beautiful, innocent woman named Elizabeth being a sleep buddy assistant to his brother. She was beautiful, he wanted her but he didn’t want his brother’s left overs. Once he realizes that he can’t get her out of his mind, he investigates and finds there is much more to this beauty than he assumed. Now he has to find a way to get her to notice him and forgive his rudeness he displayed earlier, the same rudeness that caused her to lose a job to pay for her grandmother’s medical care.

The author took a long time to bring these two together so if you don’t like the meet and have sex themes you will adore this story. The story has been developed very well giving us their misgivings at being together while showing us that love and the heart are much stronger at times than fear and risks. We learn what exactly is behind the need for revenge and lack of trust, why Ryan doesn’t believe in relationships and how losing the most important things in your life, could cause you to protect what little you have and refuse to share it with anyone else.

There are also a lot of twists and secrets that you are about to discover with this story that will leave you wanting more after you turn the last page. I was so engrossed in what I thought was going to be the happily ever after I was stunned when I realized we have more coming soon. It was a very happy stunned by the way.

This is a new author to me and I was very impressed with her ability to create the scenes in ways that allowed the reader to feel as if they were living the story. I loved how she drew two characters from the opposite sides of life and weave a world for each of them to stay true to themselves yet merge together for a future. Although once Elizabeth finds out all of the information Ryan has been keeping, I am not sure this happily ever after is going to be so easy to obtain, but we shall wait to find out. I highly recommend this book and can hardly wait to read the next installment of this story. I think this will be an author you will want to keep an eye on in the future.